Dead of the Night
by MizJoely
Summary: RETITLED (Was "Dead of the Night: A Different Vision") Vamp!Lock Sherlolly - She can't quite believe what she suspects about Sherlock...until he provides the evidence to prove her suspicions to be true. What will it mean for her when he comes to see her in her flat late that night?


**Dead of the Night - **A supernatural Sherlolly romance

_A/N: This, THIS is the story I thought I was writing when I was working on the first version of "Dead of the Night" (now renamed "Rise and Rise Again"). Sigh. The characters are always hijacking my work...but this time they took pity on me and actually cooperated. Thanks, guys! Wish I owned you but I don't. Everyone know who really owns you and nope, it ain't me. Enjoy!_

It is close to midnight when he arrives, seeping through the cracks around her sitting room window in the form of a foggy, phosphorescent mist before coalescing into human form and standing, silent and still, less than ten feet away from her. So that part of the mythology is true, she thinks, feeling a combination of numb dread and scientific curiosity as she stares up at him from where she has huddled into her most comfortable chair. It was her father's chair once, and she has many, many fond memories of him holding her on his lap when she was a little girl in need of comforting, especially during the year after her mother died when Molly was only six.

She chose the chair deliberately, the place she feels the safest and most surrounded by her family's love, even if they are all dead. She was raised a devout Catholic and has lapsed since her father's death five years ago, but still retains a quiet faith that she hopes – and literally prays – will hold her in good stead tonight.

"You aren't surprised to see me, Molly," he says, the man – creature, although she can't quite bring herself to think of him as a 'creature' even now when she has received proof that her suspicions about him are 100% correct – standing in front of her. He has drifted forward; how did she miss that movement? But move he has, while her attention was somehow, impossibly, elsewhere – or else the myths about the mental powers of vampires is as real as the creatures – beings – themselves. Has he stolen her memories or simply blanked her mind or possibly moved so quickly she simply didn't see him?

She intends to ask, but for now all she does is reach down and lift a small notebook to her lap. She sees his eyebrow raise, as well as the corner of his lip, as if her brave attempt at scientific detachment amuses him.

Although inwardly quailing, she manages to give no outward sign of how unnerved she is by his presence in her flat. "You don't require an invitation to enter a place you've never been before," she says, quite proud of how calm and even her voice is. "But you can transform into a mist. Can you turn into a bat or a wolf as well?"

Both corners of his lips are turned up now, and her heart speeds up as she recognizes real amusement on his face. The amusement of a cat toying with a mouse or simply Sherlock reacting to her words?

"No bats and no wolves," he says. She blinks and he is closer still, just about five feet away, the toes of his expensive leather shoes not quite touching the pile of garlic that is only the first layer of attempted protection she has placed around herself. "The physics involved would dictate that I become an enormous bat, far too heavy to fly, or a slightly oversized wolf. Although the latter option would certainly be viable, I have never seen another of my kind make such a transformation, nor have I ever been able to effect one myself even after a century of experimentation."

Well. That answers her next question. "What year were you turned into a vampire?" she asks, pen poised over paper and her eyes locked with his. Her breathing has quickened but she isn't sure if it's fear or the desire she has never stopped feeling for him, even after suspecting he was so much more than he appeared.

"1888," he replies. "The year I killed Jack the Ripper – although, alas, not before he killed me first."

With those astounding words, he stoops down gracefully and hefts a handful of garlic, crushing a clove absently between his fingers as he returns his gaze to Molly's. He brings his hand to his face and inhales deeply, allowing the mashed clove to touch the tip of his tongue as he darts it out between his lips. "An inferior specimen," he pronounces, dropping the mangled vegetable to the floor and wiping his hands together, lips pursed in distaste. "Remind me to bring you to the greengrocer I use; their produce is of much better quality."

Molly fights down an hysterical giggle; should she take his comment about killing Jack the Ripper – who was apparently also a vampire – as a veiled threat? Or is he lulling her into a false sense of security by implying that she will have a future past this night?

Because she knows no such thing, personally. She is convinced – has been convinced since Sherlock visited her in the Path lab at St. Bart's earlier in the day – that he is here to kill her. Because she has discovered his secret, a secret he inexplicably confirmed by his actions before he left.

Her mind returns to the cat-and-mouse analogy it conjured up earlier, and she is more convinced than ever that this is the situation she faces. There is certainly no question which of them is the cat and which the mouse, in spite of the confidence with which she poses her questions and makes her observations – and in spite of the apparent willingness with which he responds to them. Surely he is playing with her, indulging her curiosity much the way a condemned prisoner is granted a last meal of his own choice.

Surely that is the only reason he approached her in the lab earlier...

_Sherlock enters the lab without any of the usual drama; no slamming open of the door or flaring of his Belstaff, no dropping into the seat in front of his favorite microscope or filling the air with his brilliant – and frequently cutting – deductions. No John Watson in his wake, either, although Molly glances at the door to see if he is on his way. Sherlock says nothing, although he clearly reads her expectations in her body language and the curious tilt of her head. He makes no demands on her, simply watches her through those hard-to-describe eyes of his – blue, grey, green, some combination of the three?_

_She stares back at him as she finally recognizes that John is not coming, knowing that her heart is pounding and wondering if Sherlock can hear it. If, of course, she is correct and Sherlock Holmes is far, far more than he appears to be. She waits for him to speak, to do or say something, certain that he is here because he knows what she suspects to be true, but all he does is walk over to the microscope next to the one she has been using while she just sits there, frozen in place, unable to tear her eyes away from him, feeling a combination of wonder and fear and the burning desire she has always felt for him, blazing through even though she is convinced that he not only will never return her feelings but that he now views her as prey rather than as a sort of colleague._

_He lowers his eyes, focusing on his hands...why? She follows his glance as if by command, watching, fascinated and terrified, as he lifts up a small glass pipette and slowly, carefully, applies it to the tip of his left index finger._

_A drop of blood immediately wells up, although to Molly's trained eyes it is slightly darker than it should be, almost arterial, which certainly isn't what she would expect to see from such an injury._

_His next actions confuse her almost as much as the sight of that slightly-too-dark blood; he takes up a glass microscope slide and smears his blood on it, covers it with a second glass sheet, then hands it to her. She takes it automatically, her eyes once again staring into his, this time with a confused frown drawing lines between her eyebrows. He offers her a sardonic grin and turns to leave, pausing at the door and finally speaking. "That should answer some of your questions, Molly."_

_Then he is gone, and it is several minutes before she trusts herself to place the slide beneath the microscope and peer into the viewer. What she sees there is impossible; part of her, the pragmatic scientist, wants to dismiss it as some kind of trick, a sleight-of-hand substitution that Sherlock pulled in front of her very eyes, but the rest of her is screaming that she was right; he isn't just different because of his blinding intellect or his ability to deduce things with frightening accuracy. _

_Sherlock Holmes isn't human._

_Sherlock Holmes is a vampire._

Even if she were willing to dismiss the evidence he has given her (why, _why_ did he give her a sample of his own blood for her to examine?) the means by which he has entered her flat is not so easy to ignore. The way he has moved closer to her – twice – without her quite managing to see him move is equally difficult to ignore. She is not that unobservant under normal circumstances; there is no way in hell she can have missed him moving unless it was because he _wanted_ her to not see him move.

That is her next question, and he answers it as willingly as he did the first. "A combination of two things: I can move much, much faster than the human eye can see when I want to, and I blanked your consciousness for a split second each time. But that is the extent of my mental abilities," he adds, when it is clear that Molly is impatient to pose a follow-up question – and what said question must be. "I cannot steal your memories or mesmerize you into doing my bidding or control you like a puppet. I can merely blank your consciousness – that of any human unless they have extraordinary control over their own mental processes, which I can assure you is quite rare – for up to an hour at a time. After that my own control starts to deteriorate. When I was first Turned, I could only do it for seconds at a time and now," he shrugs as he reaches down and picks up Molly's second line of defense, a series of intertwined branches, "I have, as I said, managed to maintain control for as long as an hour."

She watches with rising dread as he easily handles the intertwined Hawthorne, Ash and Yew branches she went to so much trouble to retrieve from Kensington Square Gardens on her way home from work today. As he did with the garlic, he sniffs delicately at the greenery, then casually snaps the entire braided mass in two as easily as if it were a dead stick he'd picked up from the forest floor. "These only affect my kind when hardened by fire and sharpened into stakes," he says, his voice taking on a lecturing quality. "They must pierce the flesh directly over the heart, which is more difficult than the television shows and cinema would have it; Bram Stoker's novel has the heroes pounding the stakes through the vampire's hearts with a large mallet, which is, indeed, the most effective method of getting the job done."

Molly finds herself nodding in an "of course" way, her notebook abandoned on her lap as Sherlock gazes down on the next layer of protection she has scattered on her hardwood floor – mustard seeds. Any seeds, she has read, will do, but these are the first packet she grabbed at the local health food shop. Vampires are supposed to be fascinated by them, obsessed with...

"I have no interest in counting these," Sherlock pronounces, interrupting her hopeful thoughts, and there it is again, the ghost of a smile on his lips as he deliberately crunches the seeds beneath his shoes. He is less than three feet away now, and Molly's heart is hammering in her chest but her breathing – although a bit erratic – has not yet degenerated to panicky gasps. She counts that as a win as she waits for Sherlock's reaction to the next barrier she has placed between them.

It was not that difficult to find a quantity of crosses and crucifixes; a religious shop not too far from her regular tube stop had plenty in stock. She did have to lie and say that she was making a penance donation to a local charity when the clerk pressed her for a reason to buy so many, but she reasons that a lie in a good cause is more easily forgiven than other lies.

For the first time Sherlock actually hesitates, and Molly feels a surge of hope leap up in her chest, a dolphin cresting a wave and temporarily easing the panic lurking behind her eyes.

That hope crashes and burns – oh, she is mixing metaphors like a pro, like William Shakespeare, her literature teacher would be so proud – when Sherlock merely pushes the religious iconography aside with his foot. "Sorry, Molly, but the only ones that will actually work are the ones made of pure silver. None of these," he looks down and sneers, "have more than five percent silver content in them, far too low a concentration to be any good – and the religious iconography does not affect my kind," he adds.

Damn. She was really hoping for that one to be true. She supposes her tiny gold cross is no use to her as anything but an emotional comfort right now. "So no crosses but pure silver is harmful. Good to know," she manages to say, although this time there is a bit of a squeak in her voice.

"Unless you have silver chains wrapped around your wrists and throat – which I see you do not," Sherlock says with a shrug as he returns his gaze to hers, "even pure silver will not keep a vampire from drinking your blood for long." His gaze drops to her thigh. "There are other veins and arteries, perhaps not as readily available as the ones most commonly accessed, but certainly not impossible to find." His voice has gone a shade huskier as he speaks, as his eyes caress the bare skin of her thigh – she is wearing her sleep shorts and t-shirt, sensibly deciding that if he is going to kill her she might as well be comfortable. He clears his throat and returns his gaze to her face. She thinks she sees a bit of color in his cheeks but knows she must be mistaken. His voice has returned to normal, clinical and with a faint lecturing note, as he says: "A silver blade to the heart will act as effectively as the wooden stakes I mentioned earlier, and is far easier to both obtain and wield. You should keep that in mind for future reference."

She nods and manages a shaky: "Right, I'll...I'll do that." She reaches half-heartedly for her notepad, but the pen has slipped off her lap and she finds herself unwilling to break eye contact long enough to reach down and pick it up.

Sherlock, who is now standing directly in front of her – standing square in the midst of the salt she has carefully poured around her chair – kneels down and retrieves the pen for her. "Really, Molly, it is the 21st century," he chides her as he holds it in his hand and offers it to her, palm up. "You should be recording you data on your laptop or tablet rather than resorting to pen and paper."

"I guess that means you adapt well to the times – of course you do," she interrupts herself hastily. She has seen him texting and using a laptop, how comfortable he is with modern electronics of all sorts. "So," she says, suddenly desperate to change the subject even though there is no point being concerned with his opinion of her now. "You were...Turned...by Jack the Ripper?" she asks him, licking suddenly dry lips nervously. Not reaching for the pen, although his hand is still out and he is still kneeling directly in front of her.

"Take the pen," he says impatiently, but doesn't snap at her the way he has in the past when he feels she is behaving like a complete idiot. "You'll be more easily able to test my body temperature and check my pulse while my hand is extended."

She extends her hand slowly, wishing that her fingers weren't trembling quite so noticeably as she does so. Her fingers graze his as she lifts the pen from his palm, only to allow it to drop once again to the floor. His lips quirk ups and his eyes crinkle at the corners, just the smallest bit, but she finds it absurdly comforting, that sign of humor on his face. It emboldens her, just enough for her to slip her hand into his and press her fingers to his wrist.

He has a pulse. It is incredibly slow, barely fifty beats in a minute; she times it against the wrist watch still wears in spite of a world of mobile phones and laptops. She doesn't even have the excuse of being a medical professional and needing to check such things since all her "patients" are well past the having a pulse stage, but she likes the watch. It was her mother's, and she finds herself telling Sherlock that even though he hasn't asked.

He makes a neutral sound in response to her words, leaving his hand in her light grasp even though she is finished taking his pulse. She resists asking to feel his heartbeat in his chest, although she can feel her fingertips tingling with the urge to touch him there.

She focuses instead on the other data she's been offered, body temperature. His skin is cool to the touch but nowhere near as cold as that of a corpse. Cooler than human norm but only noticeable, she imagines, with prolonged contact. Which, now that she thinks about it, Sherlock has always meticulously avoided. Well, she certainly understands why.

"Cooler than human flesh but not as cold as you expected," Sherlock pronounces, reading her conclusions in her eyes and the curious brush of her fingers against his. "I still breathe. I still have a functioning circulatory system. I can still eat, although it is purely for the pleasure of doing so. I no longer take in any nutrients except via blood. Fresh blood is best, although I can live off of bagged as long as I occasionally supplement it with fresh."

Molly is completely conscious of him, aware of every nuance in his calm, cool face, the slight tension in his body, his coolness against her heat. Is it his condition that gives him such an unnatural aura of calm, or was he like this as a living man?

"I wish I'd known you when you were still human," she blurts out without thinking, then blushes because he is going to know exactly what she meant by that little slip of the tongue.

His smile deepens and he leans forward, brushing his lips along the shell of her ear. She shivers at the contact, not entirely from fear. God, how can she still want him when he is clearly toying with her before moving in for the kill?

"Just...just get it over with," she finds herself begging. "If you're going to kill me, please, just do it. Don't drag it out.

She feels his lips slide along her throat, feels and hears the quiet huff of laughter he gives at her words. "Oh, Molly," he breathes, "Haven't you figured it out yet? I'm not here to kill you."

"Th-then what?" Molly asks, hating that she's gone back to stuttering in front of him, when she's done so well at keeping her voice under control tonight even under these extraordinary circumstances. "Wh-why are you here? Why did you answer all my questions and let me test your blood?"

"Because I knew that you had begun to suspect, but were still in the process of struggling to accept what your rational scientist's mind insisted could not possibly be true," he replied, still ghosting his lips along her throat, beneath her ear, grazing her with his teeth but not biting, not drawing blood...why? She is almost burning with the need to know.

And Sherlock, it appears, wants to tell her. "You just needed a little push, physical evidence to support your beliefs." He presses the lightest of kisses to the edge of her chin and she gives an involuntary shiver as she tries to process what is happening here. "So I gave it to you."

"Why?" she whispers again, unsurprised to find that she is gripping his arms, her fingers clenching around them so tightly that they might leave bruises on a human man. A living man. But Sherlock is not alive, he is Undead, a walking corpse that somehow still seems far more vibrant and alive to her than any other man she's ever met.

"Oh, Molly, surely you can deduce me," he replies, his own hands moving from the arms of the chair to rest lightly on her waist. "If I were any other man in your flat, doing these things to you, what would you think I wanted right now?"

She nearly laughs; surely Sherlock isn't telling her...no, it's impossible. "But you're not – you're not any other man," she protests weakly, her body distracting her by how aware it is of his body so close to her. "Technically you're not even a man, are you? And besides, you aren't interested in me...that way...a-are you?"

His smile widens and so do her eyes as she finally glimpses his fangs. They were definitely not visible when he first entered the flat, but now they extend beyond his upper lip, just grazing the bottom half of his cupid's bow mouth, two delicate ivory points that rivet her attention. She makes an involuntary movement forward, her hand raising as if to touch them, but she pulls back, once again embarrassed by her inappropriate boldness, and drops her eyes to the side, forgetting just for a moment why she has not wanted to look away from him.

She feels his hand on her chin, lightly turning her head so she faces him again. Without speaking he lifts her fingers to his mouth, opening it wider and placing her index finger against the right fang.

She blushes but brings her other hand up so she can feel them both at the same time. The tips are razor sharp; she accidentally pricks her left finger but before she can pull it away Sherlock has sucked it into his mouth. She feels his tongue against the pad of her fingers, smoothing away the slight burn, and when he releases her hand she sees no sign of the injury.

"Vampire saliva can be used to heal; it's the main reason there are very few people – I suppose you would call them our 'victims' although we prefer 'donors' these days, especially since most vampires prefer willing participants for feeding – walking around with excessive scars on their necks and wrists."

Willing participants. She can certainly understand how there can be people out there willing to let someone like Sherlock put their mouths on their throats, their lips landing on the skin while the fangs sink into the jugular vein...

She shakes herself a bit, eyes glazing as she allows herself just the briefest moment of fantasy, of believing what Sherlock appears to be telling her, that he wants her...

"I do, Molly," he says as she pulls her other hand away from his lips, where she realizes it has been resting the entire time she examined her no longer bleeding index finger. She blushes again – or her already flushed cheeks grow redder since she hasn't stopped blushing – and she twists in her chair, unwilling to believe him...

Until suddenly his lips are pressed against hers. Like all his movements since he passed the final barrier between them, the kiss is soft, light, almost ethereal...until suddenly it isn't. Seconds after the kiss begins it changes into something much more demanding, his tongue sliding along her lips, coaxing her mouth open beneath his, slipping in to tangle with hers in sudden urgency.

She feels his fangs against her tongue as well, but no sooner do those elegant points prick her then they are healed. It is a cycle of pain into pleasure into pain into pleasure she could definitely get used to.

When the kiss ends – when Molly ends it by pulling away – she is panting slightly and staring at Sherlock, bewildered by this sudden difference in his attitude toward her, her mind spiraling around the thought that perhaps he has shared his physiological similarities to a human male for exactly the reason he is currently implying. "Why?" she asks again, her voice a whisper, her fingers still desperately holding onto his upper arms. "What changed?"

"You saw me," is his simple reply. "You saw me for what I am and didn't dismiss it, didn't try to ignore what you'd observed or convince yourself that you were imagining things. Do you know how rare that is, that level of observation and dedication to pursuing the truth, no matter how unlikely your theory, no matter how much it chafes against your nature? Most people don't see the existence of the supernatural because, in spite of the staggering amount of literature and cinema and pop culture dedicated to it, they don't actually _want_ to believe. They want it safely contained in their imaginations, where the vampire or the wolf man or demon or whatever behaves as they expect it to. Where they can control it."

His voice has risen and Molly realizes she is hearing true passion, a passion she normally only hears from him when it involves solving a crime or pursuing a case. She is rattled to hear it addressed toward her, and ridiculously flattered and terrified that this is all some prelude to a revelation that he is only experimenting on her, testing out how people might react to him if they know exactly what he is – and she is still half-convinced that this night will end with her blood-drained corpse being fished out of the Thames in a week's time.

Sherlock shakes his head and leans back on his heels. She immediately misses his presence so close to her own while at the same time bracing herself for the switch to be flipped, for Sherlock to lunge for her throat – the same throat he has been peppering with kisses and toe-curling swipes of his tongue – and kill her.

"Molly," he says, his voice sharper, no longer a seductive whisper. She starts and presses herself further into the comfort of her father's chair, but her eyes meet his and she manages to keep her urge to shiver under control. "What do I have to do to convince you that you have nothing to fear from me? That I am here because I choose to be here, that I want to be with you?"

"How many people have you killed?"

She is immediately horrified by her outburst; she had no intention of broaching that particular subject, but if Sherlock is only toying with her and plans to kill her, he has nothing to lose by answering. And if he is telling her the simple truth – if he actually _does_ want to be with her – then he will answer because she deserves to know.

He regards her steadily for a long minute, then speaks. "Including the four men I killed when I was still human – and my first kills as a vampire, the medical doctor whom the press of the time dubbed Jack the Ripper – I have killed a total of sixty criminals."

"How many non-criminals have you killed?" Molly demands. Wait, no, wrong; how can she be demanding something when Sherlock clearly has all the power in this moment? She cringes back, expecting some kind of backlash, but all he does is sigh and give a slight shake of his head.

"None, Molly. I've already told you, I don't need to kill in order to take in the nourishment I require to maintain my existence. But even when I was forced to feed exclusively on living beings, I never took more than a pint at a time. The men I killed – and the two women – did not meet their deaths at my fangs, only at my hands. In other words – I shot them. The only throat I have ever torn out in a fit of rage belonged to the Ripper, and I believe I can be forgiven that little excess of passion, considering he'd already done the same to me two months earlier. And deliberately Turned me as well."

This is not what Molly is expecting to hear. Not in the least. All she manages to say is a weak: "Oh."

Sherlock remains rocked back on his heels, still looking at her, his eyes cool and impartial, taking her apart as always, but Molly thinks she sees something beneath that cool exterior, a sort of anticipatory amusement that gives her the courage to do what she does next.

She leans forward in her seat; at some point her hands have dropped from Sherlock's arms, and now she rests them on his knees. She peers intently into his eyes, and her mouth drops open, her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and the coolness in his expression is burned away by a sudden heat that cannot be mistaken for anything other than pure lust.

Which one moves first, Molly never can figure out. Later, when she looks back on this moment, one minute she is convinced it is she who pulled him into her embrace; the next, she is certain he reached first for her.

Either way the result is the same. Their mouths crash together; Molly's fingers are tangled in Sherlock's glorious dark locks, his arms are wrapped around her body at waist and shoulders, and she is no longer sitting on her father's chair. Which, the small part of her mind that is still clinical and detached notes, is just as well, since it is doubtful he would approve of Molly and Sherlock having sex on his favorite piece of furniture.

As Sherlock pulls her tight against his body, she feels a familiar bulge from beneath his trousers, although without the heat she would expect from a normal human male. It is, however, noticeably warmer than the rest of his flesh, and she feels a flash of energy shiver through her body at the thought of feeling it deep inside her, Sherlock's cock buried in her human female warmth and wetness.

She has had fantasies since first meeting him, which have only grown and multiplied, lolloping through her mind like bunnies, based not only on his physical attributes, which are too numerous for her to name even if she so desired, but also on the sheer, overwhelming power of his intellect. He is, frankly, the most gorgeous man she has ever met, mentally and physically, and even knowing what he is does nothing to put her off. Especially now that she is finally ready to believe him, that he doesn't want to kill her.

That he simply..._wants_ her.

And God forgive her, but she wants him as well, desperately. Loves him, even, although she has no idea how he feels about her beyond physical desire. Well, and the fact that he apparently admires her intellect or at least her willingness to chase down the truth no matter the cost. And both are things she never expected him to admit to her. Ever.

She feels his hands stroking along her sides, easing their way down to her hips, sliding across her buttocks, and feels the most delicious shiver shake its way over her body, pulling a moan from her throat that he answers with one of his own.

It is her name she hears him gasp out when she slides her own hands down between them, resting softly against that warm bulge. She finds the contrast incredibly arousing, and shivers again as she hears him whisper words to the same effect in her ear.

"You're so warm, Molly, burning me, but I vow it's the sweetest flame I've ever allowed myself to touch."

There is something old-fashioned about his phrasing, which is no surprise considering he was born in the mid 19th century. What is surprising is how aroused she becomes as he continues whispering in her ear, the flowery phrases acting like the most potent aphrodisiac as her fingers frantically scrabble over the buttons to his shirt, as she shoves the Belstaff off his shoulders and down his arms, as she fumbles with his belt.

Before she knows it they are both naked, still kneeling on the floor in front of her father's chair, but it is not his silent, beyond-the-grave disapproval that leads her to rise to her feet and tug Sherlock up to join her. No, it is the salt clinging to her knees; she leans down to brush it off and is rewarded by the feel of Sherlock's body pressed up against hers, his hands on her hips and his erection sliding between the cleft of her buttocks as he ruts against her.

She giggles a bit but takes her time brushing away the white grains. Sherlock may have been a Victorian gentleman when he was Turned, but she knows enough about those times to wonder if he has a collection of naughty French postcards stashed away somewhere in his flat at 221B.

It occurs to her that he has a brother, Mycroft; is he in truth Sherlock's brother or some other, more distant relation – or descendent?

The feel of Sherlock's hand cupping her breast, the sound of him groaning in pleasure as he continues to rub up against her buttocks, pushes her curiosity right out of her mind. Later she will quiz him on his relationship to Mycroft Holmes, ask him if DI Lestrade or John Watson or his landlady, Mrs. Hudson, know what he truly is. Later she will ask about his ability to go about in daylight – is it just him, something all vampires can do or does it come with age – and how long he can exist in this form and the many, many other questions she has for him.

Later. Right now the only thing she can focus on is getting him into her bedroom. She splurged on a queen sized bed that takes up nearly the entirety of her room, but now she is thankful Sherlock doesn't have to try and squeeze his lanky frame into something smaller.

She giggles again at her unintended double-entendre; isn't that exactly what she hopes he is about to do, considering their height difference?

Fortunately Sherlock neither spoils the mood by pointing out her inappropriate sounds nor appears put off by her laughter. All he does is catch her around the waist as she finally straightens up, spinning her in his arms in order to press his lips to hers for a kiss that any police officer would label an assault with a deadly weapon.

She loves it, loves how he warms a bit as he holds her – never enough to fool her for even a moment into believing him to a be a regular human male – loves how he sweeps her into his arms bridal-style and carries her unerringly into the correct bedroom even though (she believes) he has never been in her flat before tonight.

She even loves how he kicks the door shut behind them, ensuring that her cat, Toby, will not find his way in there during the night as he usually does.

She revels in the way he lowers her to her feet without breaking the kiss he has initiated, holding her tightly against his body as he turns so her back is pressed to the simple wooden door. It is painted white and sanded smooth – no danger of splinters – and she gasps as he lifts her up, his hands beneath her buttocks, and presses his cock against her gathering wetness, sliding it up and down against her body until she cries out in pleasure.

Her hands have been resting on his shoulders; she removes one, lowering it down to encircle his warm cock and guide it into her. She has never been so ready for a man to take her in her entire adult life. She shifts her hips just the slightest bit, wraps her legs tightly around his waist...there!She cries out as he plunges deep inside her, immediately stilling in order to give her time to adjust to his girth. He is not overly endowed, not some porn film stallion, but he is a good size and she is tiny and not overly experienced and it has been almost a year since she last had sex.

He holds her so easily, as if she weighs nothing; there is no sense of effort and Molly finds that insanely sexy. Of course, everything about the encounter is insanely sexy now that she no longer fears for her life, but the fact that he does not have to use her own weight against the walls in order to sustain this position is an incredible turn on.

He leans his head forward and places a line of kisses along the side of her throat as he slowly starts to move his hips, driving himself in and out of her in a gathering rhythm, and her brain turns itself back on long enough for her to gasp out a quick – but vital – question. "Are you going to...will you...do I have to worry..."

"Oh, I don't doubt but that I'll sink my fangs into your pretty little neck, and not long off," he says, his baritone a husky whisper as he answers her tangled mess of a question. "I'll drink some of your blood and I guarantee you will enjoy every second of it. But no, there would have to be deliberate, conscious intent behind the bite in order for me to Turn you, Molly, and I would never begin such a process unless you asked it of me."

Then he moves his hips again, thrusting deeply within her after partially withdrawing to answer her question and that part of her brain is instantly eclipsed by the part given over to her libido at the moment – that is to say, pretty much all of it. She drops her head back, pleased that her hair is still in its ponytail out of the way of his trailing lips, then digs her fingers into his shoulders when he stops kissing and begins sucking, gently at first but rapidly gaining in intensity, just at the area where her shoulder meets her neck.

She has never been one for vampire movies, even the more recent ones with much sexier vampires than she remembers from the Hammer films she and her dad used to watch together, but now she can certainly see the appeal. Feeling Sherlock beneath her, moving, thrusting, his fingers securely beneath her bum, his mouth on her throat – oh, yessss, it's all good. So, so incredibly good.

She manages to gasp those very words out, not worried at all at how she sounds, wanton and demanding, the way she has never been with past lovers or boyfriends. There is a wildness in her, adrenaline flowing, desire finally being met with desire from the one man she has craved for far too long, and the fact that he is a supernatural being is only the icing on the proverbial cake.

She gasps and writhes as she feels his fangs suddenly pierce her flesh, sinking deep into her jugular even as Sherlock increases the pace of his thrusts. She locks her heels together behind his back and cries out sharply as the most shattering orgasm she has ever experienced tears her down and builds her back up again.

She is still in a delirium of pleasure when Sherlock brings her over to her bed and rests his body on top of hers, dropping small kisses to her face – her cheeks, the corner of her mouth, her eyelids – and brushing her hair away from her face. Her ponytail holder has either come out on its own or been removed by him, but he seems to enjoy running his fingers through the sweat-dampened tresses, patiently waiting for her trembling aftershocks to still and for her to open her eyes and look at him.

The only light in her room comes from the window, a combination of moonlight and the reflected lights of the city around them, but it is enough for her to see his face. His eyes glitter oddly in the ambient light but not as much as Toby's do under the same circumstances, and she wonders if it is for the same reason.

She wonders, but she does not ask. The time for questions is over for tonight. It will start again, soon – but definitely not tonight.

She reaches down and strokes her fingers along Sherlock's erection. He is still quite hard and a bit damp from her juices. "You haven't finished," she murmurs.

He smiles, just a hint showing in the darkness to which her eyes are still adjusting, teeth – and fangs – flashing briefly before he responds to her observation. "I wanted you in the moment with me, Molly, not lost in your own pleasure. Selfish, I know, but surely you've realized by now what a selfish man I am and always have been." He nibbles delicately at her left earlobe, and she shivers and encircles his shaft, sliding her hand up and down its length. If he breathed the way a human did, she liked to believe his breath would have caught. As it is, he goes very, very still, his eyes narrowing to slits as he says: "Selfish and greedy. Molly, I would like very much to mark you as mine. To show others of my kind that I've claimed you. Would you bear such a mark proudly or see it as something shameful?"

She isn't quite sure what he means, but has her suspicions. "You mean you want to...to bite me," she whispers, not quite believing the words are coming out of her mouth. "And not...have the marks fade? Leave the scars?"

He nods, tracing the curve of her face with one hand. Her own movements have stilled, although she is still clutching his erection in one hand and his upper arm in the other.

She considers what he is asking her, considers it very, very carefully and for almost a full minute, her mind racing, before she answers. She has only today had the existence of vampires confirmed; she has only today become Sherlock's lover. What he is asking of her sounds like he considers her property, but she suspects that only scratches the surface of what it truly means.

So she asks him to explain, and he tells her. She will never be touched by another vampire, and if she is, that vampire will pay the price for daring to do so. She will not date others, or take other lovers. She will be his, but not as property or a pet or even a convenient source of blood – although he does confess that he prefers the heady taste of her A+ blood to the more common types. She will be his mate, his wife if she insists on the human custom of marriage, to which he confesses he is not averse. She will keep his secrets and he will do the same for her.

It is an exchange of vows he is offering, and although she longs with all her heart to shout "Yes!" and bare her neck to him, she continues to hesitate. The doubts and fears flash across her mind; he could be lying about so much; she has only his word that he doesn't kill to feed, that he's only killed criminals in his past.

Then she thinks about who he is, the man she's come to know over the past few years – and she thinks about the types of people he surrounds himself with. People like Greg Lestrade and John Watson and Martha Hudson. Good people, kind people – but not soft. Sherlock would destroy any soft friends he might try to make. Molly was soft for a long time, not even realizing how soft she was until her eyes were opened to the true strangeness of the world around her.

That Molly is the one who finally answers, who casts aside her fears and nods, a tiny nod but one he does not miss. Even if he did, he cannot misunderstand the way she slips her hair over one shoulder, pulling it away from her neck and baring her throat to him. "Yes," she whispers as he leans down and sinks his fangs into her jugular, drinking in her blood as she gasps and digs her nails into his shoulder and slides her hand down his shaft again.

"Yes," he murmurs in return after removing his mouth from her throat, kissing the twin puncture marks with a reverent tenderness that brings tears to Molly's eyes.

The tears are quickly banished when he nudges her legs further apart and allows her to guide him into her. She is still wet and welcoming and suspects that he will always find her this way, no matter where or when he comes to her.

He slips into her, no pain or stretching this time, filling her, making her whole, and when he begins to move against her she is unrestrained in her response, lifting her hips to meet his, twining her arms around his neck, running her fingers through his glorious hair, whispering her love and acceptance to him as he rests his cheek against hers.

It isn't long at all before he gasps out her name and rams himself into her, body stilling as his orgasm hits. He bites her again as he is coming and she cries out as the feel of his fangs in her throat brings her over the edge with him.

Afterwards, as they lay tangled in one another's arms, she wonders how she ended up in such a mad situation. Then Sherlock kisses her, she looks into his heavenly blue eyes, and she realizes she wouldn't have it any other way.

She can hardly wait to see what the future will bring.


End file.
